Search - Grit Boys :: Ghetto Reality in Texas

The past few years have been huge for hip-hop in Houston. A wealth of artists scored major label deals, made videos for MTV and became household names. Paul Wall, Mike Jones, Chamillionaire, Lil Flip and Slim Thug all helped to infect the world with the Houston Sound, but the question on everybody s mind in 2007 is, what s next?

The Grit Boys Scooby, Poppy, Unique & Pretty Todd are next.

You think you know Houston hip hop: the cars with the candy paint, big rims and flashy accessories, and the culture of sipping codeine cough syrup while listening to the slowed down sounds of DJ s like DJ Screw and Michael Watts.
But Houston, Texas is a dynamic city. Home to NASA, much of the energy industry and one of the busiest ports in the world, Houston on the surface is a rich city. Come down and see it with your own eyes and you ll see that all of the forementioned is eclipsed by some serious "Ghetto Realities."

Hailing from the south side of Houston, the Grit Boys represent those harsh realities. Their lyrics are more akin to early Geto Boys or Public Enemy than they are to what you ve come to expect from Houston, and their music reaches further than most of the artists from Houston will allow themselves to reach.

Their debut full-length album, "Ghetto Reality in Texas", is a wild ride through the real streets of Houston and was produced entirely in-house by the Grid Iron production team of Pretty Todd and Calvin Earl. Producer Pretty Todd helped shape the sounds of Paul Wall, Chamillionaire and Mike Jones in their early days and has also worked with classic Houston artists like Lil O and the Grit Boys mentor and inspiration, the late, great Big Hawk.

Unfortunately, the world lost Hawk in May of 2006, to some bullets fired by an unknown assailant outside of one of his best friends homes.

Since then, the musical goals the Grit Boys set for themselves became a serious mission to bring reality back to the fantasy filled rap game, just as their mentor and friend would have wanted. The Grit Boys have always been strong on the mix tape circuit, releasing discs that featured all of the hottest names in H-Town flowing alongside them including Hawk, Lil Keke, Slim Thug and another close friend, Paul Wall. As the mix tape game began to get over saturated, the Grit Boys decided to step their game up and record videos for some of their hottest tracks. The result was a groundbreaking DVD Mix tape series that upped their profile to new heights and brought them to the top of the underground in their already on fire hometown.

Entitled "Ghetto Reality in Texas", the long awaited disc contains features from artists as diverse as Dizzee Rascal, Blink 182's Travis Barker, Paul Wall and Lil Keke, but the Grit Boys aren t ones to rely on features to make their album hot. On the opening intro, Scooby raps Let me just show you where I m from, show you why I come, show you why I run, up and down these streets, there s no time to sleep. I gotta snatch the load, let mama sleep man, and it ain t no doubt that we can, succeed and separate ourselves from the other week mans." And similar lines ring true throughout.